Texture is a crucial element of any digital paper. It may be that you are designing your own papers or want to add a bit of grunge to an existing paper.
This tutorial demonstrates the theory behind creating textured overlays that you can then extend with your own skills.
To create unique textures you need to create your own stock library to draw on. You can do this by scanning interesting textures such as paper towels or fabric and by carefully photographing elements such as cracking plaster walls. High resolution images are needed to ensure that your textures don’t suffer from blur or jaggies given that they need to cover an area of 12x12 inch.
The more textures in your library, the more options you have to create unique overlays.
We are going to start by physically creating papers to add to or start your texture library with.
You will need:
2 -3 sheets of legal/A4 sized paper. If possible use art paper – a thicker quality than ordinary inkjet paper. You could also use 12x12 cardstock or similar.
2 Tea bags
1 spoonful of instant coffee
1 small mug of hot water
1 Tray
1 hairdryer
Crumple, crease, and fold the paper – how much is up to you. Lay the paper in a tray – the tray is simply to catch run off. (I’ve used a lid from a casserole dish)
Sprinkle a few grains of instant coffee over the paper, particularly along creases. Finer grain coffee is easier to handle. Soak the tea bags in a small mug of hot water – don’t use boiling water or you wont be able to handle the tea bag.
When the tea bag is saturated use it to dab and drag over the surface over the paper. Use the tea bag to dissolve and rub in the coffee. Pay particular attention to the creases for emphasis.
When you are happy with the result, use a hairdryer on a high setting to dry the paper. You can also just leave it to dry in the sun.
Make sure the paper is completely dry before moving on to the next step.
Make a few papers, each page will be unique.
Once dry you need to scan the paper, smooth it out to ensure you get a good scan. If necessary you can place the paper under a towel and iron over the towel quickly to flatten.
When you scan the paper, scan at 400ppi in color and turn off any automatic options such as auto toning.
Create a new document at 12x12” 300ppi
Open the paper you scanned to the workspace and drag the scanned paper onto your document.
You will find that the paper is just slightly too narrow for the canvas but with additional length.
Select the move tool and drag the paper out to fit. As we scanned the original paper at 400ppi we have a few pixels to play with and won’t compromise the quality. Move the paper within the document to select the area you wish to keep.
Use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the document area and use CTRL+J to duplicate the area, then delete the original layer. This leaves us without the excess paper “off” document.
You may want to touch up the paper to emphasize certain areas. You can use the dodge or burn brush to darken or lighten areas.
Save this document and you have a wonderful textured paper you can use for layouts as is.
You can also easily use this paper as an overlay by changing the layer blends over a solid color.
Create a new layer and fill with a solid color of your choice.
Select the tea stained paper and cycle through the layer blend modes to find a result you like.
To apply only the texture of the paper you created you need to convert it to black and white.
Select the tea stained paper and choose Image> Adjustments> Black and White and then OK.
Changing the contrast in the image will allow you to emphasize different areas, for a clearer texture.
Select the black and white paper and go to Image> Adjustments> Levels
Experiment with the sliders to choose a contrast level
Cycle through the blending modes to find a look you like.
You can alter the opacity of the layer to control the amount of texture that is visible.
You can use your new overlay to apply to patterned paper. Replace the solid color with a patterned paper from your collection. Cycle through the blend modes to get the result you want. Use multiple layers of the overlay to change the emphasis of the texture. The results will vary each time based on the colors, tones and existing textures in the paper.
The principles of this tutorial apply whether you are using a scan or a digital photo as your source image. It is worth repeating that high resolution images are needed to ensure that your textures don’t suffer from blur. Build up your texture library by being creative and having fun!
You can download a PDF version of this tutorial by CLICKING HERE
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